Visiting my sis, scratch that, her puppies :)

Last week we took a little tripsy to see my sister. As I was looking through the pics of the trip, I realized she really wasn't in any of the pics(except one) so I realized I needed to change the title of the post:) Hehe. For those of you that don't know my sister, Tara, she is an MAJOR animal lover. She has dogs up the wazoo right now:) She has 2 dogs, 2 puppies, and 1 prairie dog. Yes, you read that right, a prairie dog. He scares me. He looks at me with crazy eyes. . . like he wants to eat me alive.

So, anyways, her yorkie, Maya, just had 2 puppies(females-Mallory & Marina. Btw, if anyone is interested in purchasing a purebred yorkie puppy, let me know! I think they'll be ready for a new home in January) and so we thought we'd come and visit. The girls were so excited to see such tiny puppies! They were also excited to see you too Tara:)

A couple of adorable puppy shots

Big yawn

The kids holding them, very carefully of course:)

One of them sleeping in Joey's arms. I love her little paws up:)

Cali and Charlie the prairie dog. Cali got a little close to the cage a couple of times and scared me. Hes a mean little booger that I believe would delight in biting her finger:) Even though he scares me, there is something about him that just makes me laugh though. His personality is a riot.

After our visit with the animals, we went to lunch at Freebirds. It was YUMMY! None of us had ever been there before and we thought we'd try it out. Its like Chipotle. But different. It has more of an Austin/funky feel. I remember seeing these when we lived in Austin, but never got to try it. So glad we did!

Thanks for letting us come visit Tara! We had fun with you and all of your furry little friends.

Thankful

Thanksgiving is such a wonderful day, a day to give thanks, a day to be with family & friends, and of course, a day to eat like a pig:) I decided yesterday morning to make these cute pancakes to start out our Thanksgiving day. I got the idea from the This Mama Loves to Cook blog. So easy and so adorable! I surprised my kids with them and they thought they were so cool. We ate breakfast while watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade(who doesn't watch that?). Its the American tradition!

We created a wall of thanks this year(well, in our case-windows). The kids loved thinking of things they were thankful for and sticking them to the windows. Some of my favorites of Aubreys were: sisters, Heavenly Father, Great Wolf Lodge, resteronts, my whole family, fridge and freazer, getting baptized, upstairs. Some of Ella's goodies were: Jonas Bruthers, Ice Slis(ice slides), my dad becuse he works, dance, family, frich friis(french fries), chokelit brownes(chocolate brownies), apples. My favorite answer of Joey's was: Holly. :) My other favorite answers of his were: big old cadillacs, waves and Post-It Notes. So clever:) If you want to know some of my answers, okay, I'll tell you a few: my hot hubster, sweet beautiful daughters, Disneyland, Mexican food, and many more thrilling answers:) Oh, and I can't forget Cali. She scribbled on a few!

This year we stayed home and spent Thanksgiving with good friends. We had a wonderful day, but of course we missed our family(we'll see you soon though!) We hosted the dinner at our home which gave me an excuse to finally buy some placemats, napkins & napkin rings. Fun!Nothing fancy- I like simple stuff. Oh, and the cute little placecards were made by my friend, Sheri's, kids. They were really cute!

So, this was my first year to actually make my own pumpkin and pecan pie. I thought they turned out not-too-shabby. I had to take a picture to document one of my firsts. . .

The grown-ups at the grown-up table(actually Cali and Charley, another little friend her age, were at our table, but they ate and ran:) Toys are way more fun than turkey. And thank you Aubrey for taking this picture!

The kids at the kid table

Fun with olives



Zac and the kiddos. He was the entertainment for the day:) Besides the olives.



After everyone left, he walked over to his bed and just fell asleep instantly. Those kids wore him out:) He had a great Thanksgiving too. Lots of love and attention were poured out on him!

It was a great day! I am so thankful for so many things in my life, but to me, these are the very most important. . .

God

Family

Love

The Gospel

Health

Home

Friendship

Life

Oh, and chocolate chip cookies too. :)

Hope y'all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

ICE! at the Gaylord Texan

We started off our Thanksgiving break by going to ICE! (click for more details) at the Gaylord Texan. 2 million pounds of intricately hand carved ice telling the story of How The Grinch Stole Christmas. WOW. It was just awesome! If you live in the area, you have got to go to this! Not only was the ice part of it amazing, but the hotel itself as well. It is decorated beautifully for the Christmas season and is just such a nice hotel! We had never been before, but I'm glad we went this year. Its something we have talked about doing before but wanted to wait until Cali was older. This year was the perfect year to go. Plus, we went early in the week and early in the day to avoid the crowds. And avoid crowds we did. No lines! Anyways, get ready for LOTS of pictures. . . .

The beautiful hotel. Santa is actually in the water driving a speedboat, but you can't tell in this picture.

A very tall toy soldier to greet guests

The festive atrium-I bet this place is gorgeous at night. I think next time we go, we'll try and go in the evening. But I know its more crowded in the evening, so I don't know what is more worth it. . .

Joey and the girls in front of the ginormous Christmas tree

Ella thought of this pose all on her own:)
The lone star ceiling


After soaking in the atmosphere, we went to get our Ice tickets. Here is Cali ready to rock! She was so cute in her parka. You couldn't even see her little hands:) So, the area you walk through is kept at a chilling 9 degrees. They give everyone parkas to wear(which also helps you to slide down the ice slides later in the attraction). Word to the wise, if you go, bring winter coats, gloves and hats. Even with the parka, its very cold!

Excited to go inside!

This is all ice. Crazy.

Posing with a huge chunk of Grinch ice

So before you walk in, you get this spiel on how not to touch the ice, other than the slides. Well, Cali had a really hard time obeying this rule. We were constantly telling her to stop touching everything. And not only did she touch, she tasted. Joey couldn't resist letting her lick a little for a photo op:)

The girls and I in the ice tunnel. So pretty!

I thought this ice wall was pretty cool. When you turned the corner, there was a room full of ice slides. I don't have pictures of it-doh! But I took a couple of video clips of the kiddos. I'll post those later.

The whos singing their song

Cali watching with her little tongue sticking out

The girls and the grinch and a mighty big roast beast.

I have to say this was my favorite part. At the end, there was a nativity made of ice-it was truly beautiful. I loved how they did this and even played a message about Jesus Christ and His birth.

After we were done walking through and our hands and toes thawed out, we watched the Grinch cartoon movie on a big screen there. Then we bought the kids a Grinch ornament to remember our visit(It was only 4.95! They got us:) Then, the kids played on this little train. It was stationary, but still provided some entertainment:)

And then we walked around the hotel a little more and found this life-size real gingerbread house. I read somewhere that there were like 300,000 m&ms on this thing! And I don't even know how many pounds of gingerbread.

This is an amazing place to check out with your family during the holidays. I've heard it gets crowded closer to Christmas so go soon if you can!

Happy Birthday Laura!

Today is my very best friend Laura's big 30th birthday! I've been teasing her about turning 30 before me for the past couple of months, but in all honesty, 30 is the new 20, so live it up girlfriend! I mean, look at Jennifer Aniston in her 20's vs. her 30's. She looked way hotter in her 30's! Everyone knows that. . .thats what I keep telling myself anyways:) Anyways, Laura and I have been BFFs since the 6th grade. She is a wonderful, trustworthy, sweet, hilarious, witty, smart, beautiful, generous, loyal, crazy fun friend who has blessed my life in more ways than I could ever imagine. Thanks for always being there for me Laura and for always making me laugh so hard I pee a little...or a lot:) Glad to hear you had a great day and a great family who took great care of you(did I use the word "great" enough?) I'm so glad I was blessed to meet you 18 years ago(yes, its been that long!) I'm proud of you and all of your accomplishments. You are an awesome mom and wife and have such a beautiful family, inside and out. Happy Birthday beanpole! !) Love ya! Looking forward to years and years of even more fun memories. . .

Saturday Night Jams

Just when we thought everyone was feeling better, Aubrey, Ella and I came down with a cold(which turns into a 102 fever late Friday night for Ella, so I guess hers wasn't just a cold). Anyways, Saturday wasn't looking good. Ella had been invited to a friends' birthday party and we had to tell her she couldn't go. She had talked about this party all week long. It broke her little heart! She was feeling pretty good yesterday, but with a fever the night before I couldn't send her. And Joey and I couldn't go on our double date we had planned for weeks(to see New Moon. I still haven't seen it! Can you believe? I think my mom has seen it twice already. I'm jealous:). So there were low spirits and frowns yesterday morning. I told Ella, ya know what, we are going to have our own party! Its going to be a family get well/happy unbirthday/whatever you want to call it party. And that cheered her right up! I made a cookie cake last night, we played party games, and did a little freeze dancing and karaoke. We turned the frowns upside down. And thankfully last night, Ella had no fever! Hope it stays that way! And we are all feeling pretty decent, aside from congestion. So hopefully we can have a great Thanksgiving break together. Joey has the whole week off and we have some fun stuff planned. I'm crossing my fingers we can all be healthy and enjoy some family time together!

Anyways, I thought I'd share a couple of video clips of our jam session last night. My kids have mad skillz:)

Look what came home from school yesterday...

...a turkey! I don't think we'll eat her for Thanksgiving though. Shes too cute:)

Thank you Awkward Family Photos

I discovered awkwardfamilyphotos.com several months ago and thought I'd share a few of my favorite pictures. . .this is seriously one of the best sites on the web! Hours of entertainment. . .

Evil Easter bunny

What a sweet little girl

Love the Glamour Shots collar hold and the massive amount of denim and hairspray

The happiest place on Earth

Two guns. Two cats. Three smiles.

If I opened a present with this inside, I'd wrap it right back up and give it back.

Those eyes look about ready to pop out of their sockets. Maybe he sees a rabbid squirrel climbing up the Christmas tree or something.

Who knew Tampax could be so fun?

Two boys, each with their own set of problems.

Tan much?

Um. No comment.